J.R.R. Tolkien’s school friend group was called the T.C.B.S., short for the Tea Club and Barrovian Society. It formed among students at King Edward’s School in Birmingham before the First World War.
The group’s members included Tolkien, Geoffrey Bache Smith, Christopher Wiseman, and Robert Quilter Gilson. They shared literary interests and encouraged one another’s writing, conversation, and artistic ambitions. The name referred humorously to their habit of meeting for tea and to King Edward’s School’s location near the Bull Ring.
The First World War profoundly affected the friends. Gilson and Smith were killed in 1916, while Tolkien and Wiseman survived the war. Tolkien later regarded the group’s shared ideals and losses as a major influence on his life and creative development.
The T.C.B.S. is sometimes confused with the Inklings, but they belonged to different periods. The T.C.B.S. was a school-era friendship network; the Inklings was an Oxford literary circle that became prominent decades later.